The team of activists at Nirmukta have two big announcements to make. We believe that these announcements carry enormous implications for the future of organized Freethought in India.

As regular readers will know, the Nirmukta team has plans to register Nirmukta as a non-profit organization in the near future. There will soon be management and advisory roles to be filled on a permanent and official basis, but until then the Nirmukta Advisory Board is an unofficial solution to facilitate organization and planning. The board will coordinate the work through regular online meetings and frequent discussions on the forums.

The Nirmukta Advisory Board has approved the appointment of Dr. N. Bala as the National Coordinator of Nirmukta, on a temporary basis until the organization is registered. Dr. Bala is one of the coordinators of the Orkut group, Atheism in India, which has over 2000 members. He is also the creator of IndianHumanist.org and is an active participant in the Nirmuka Bangalore regional group. Dr. Bala will work in concert with the Nirmukta Advisory Board.

Looking Ahead

The Nirmukta Advisory Board is working on two broad areas of interest.

1. Media Network - We are putting together a team of websites, journalists and writers, programmers, designers, artists, filmmakers and PR people to help form a network of media resources with the agenda of promoting Freethought in India. We have already held two meetings, and a report on the progress of the media network will soon follow.

2. Regional groups - The online organizational work at Nirmukta will run parallel with on-ground activism, beginning with the establishment of regional groups across the country. Although there are many rationalist groups in India, we feel that there is a need for a nation-wide network of groups that connect young and progressive Indian Freethinkers. Our Bangalore group is the most active one at the moment, although we are seeing interest from Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai.

Dr. Bala will begin acting in his capacity as coordinator, contacting individuals and groups across the country. His appointment helps bring the vast atheist community on the Orkut Atheism in India group together with the members of the Nirmukta facebook group, the Carvaka group on facebook, the Indian Atheists fan page on Facebook and the Indian Atheists group on Atheist Nexus, all of which have been under Nirmukta management since their inception.

Our plan is to build a large online coalition for Freethought in India. Join us, the movement needs you!